A new text Scam

Last updated on July 5th, 2024 at 12:56 pm

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Well there seems to be a new text message scam going around. This one was sent to my mom. It seems like it’s a phishing scam mixed with a bit of a dating or personal touch.

So like most of the text scams lately they range in style or type. This seems new to me. I also found it interesting that the texts are being sent from email addresses as well.

The texter

The test was sent from a Gmail account. It seems that the owner is a woman. The sender was Velascooshea8705@gmail.com

The text

The text was pretty straightforward. It seems this sender is in need of love.

The text reads as follows:

I am a married woman but not getting what I need at home happy face emoji ) http://3.25.93.208/loUil

What gets me

Okay there’s what gets me. First of all why would someone randomly send out a text from a email address to a very random phone number. Also if the texter claims she is unhappy why did she add a Happy face emoji.

Secondly, the link looks very fishy to me. It’s an IP address.

What might happen if you clicked the link

Let’s talk about the link. Since it’s an IP address it could lead you to any number of websites. It could also add some type of malware to your phone. Or worse yet someone could hack your phone. If this was the case I would think the message sender was looking for financial information.

what i learned

Well I did a quick search of the IP address. I couldn’t find the full link info but the IP I did. According to AbuseIPDB the IP address is part of the Amazon network in Australia. I also found another confirmation of it being part of Amazon’s network via Whois.

As far as the email address goes I didn’t find anything confirming it was a true Gmail account.

What to do in this case

Like usual don’t reply to these texts. You can also block the sender if your phone service offers that option. I just deleted it.

I hope this post was helpful.